On Life and Letters (French: La Vie littéraire, published in four series between 1888 and 1892) collects France’s weekly literary columns from Le Temps, the leading Parisian newspaper. The columns — written over several years — cover an enormous range of contemporary and historical literature, treating each book not merely as an object for review but as an occasion for philosophical and personal reflection.
France’s critical method is explicitly subjective: he famously defined criticism as “the adventures of the soul among masterpieces” — meaning that the critic’s proper subject is not the objective qualities of a text but the experience of reading it, the thoughts and feelings it provokes, the connections it generates with other books and other experiences. This position was controversial (the “objective” school of criticism, led by Brunetière, attacked it vigorously) but proved enormously influential.
The essays are written with the same prose elegance that characterizes France’s fiction: each one is a small work of art, combining literary analysis with anecdote, philosophical digression, and personal confession. France writes about Zola and Daudet, about Homer and Virgil, about contemporary poetry and ancient history, with equal facility and equal intelligence.
The four series of La Vie littéraire established France as the leading literary critic in France — a position that complemented rather than competed with his growing reputation as a novelist. He demonstrated that criticism and creation were not opposed activities but different expressions of the same literary intelligence.
Collecting On Life and Letters (La Vie littéraire)
First editions (Calmann-Lévy, Paris, 1888-1892): Four volumes, French text, original wrappers.
Market values:
- Complete set, first editions, fine: $100–$300
- Individual volumes: $20–$60
- English translations (John Lane): $15–$40 per volume